Donald Trump's remarks this week on the Second Amendment in a rally in North Carolina have stirred up a new furor only a day after Trump had presented portions of his economic plan for the nation. After Trump had said that if Hillary Clinton was elected president, she would get rid of the Second Amendment through the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Trump then said that "we can't do anything about it" but maybe the Second Amendment people could.
After Trump's remarks were telecast to the nation, a number of opinion makers read them as a thinly-veiled attempt to prompt someone to take out Clinton with a firearm. Trump surrogates immediately responded by blaming the reaction on a misreading by a biased media; however, after what Trump said was broadcast a great number of times and the words remained the same, that effort was essentially abandoned. The new response was that Donald Trump was just telling a joke. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), for instance, called it "a joke gone bad" and he hoped that Trump would "clear" it up very shortly. Sen. Susan Collins also called it a joke but acknowledged that Trump's lack of discipline in what he says does lead to multiple interpretations.
One of those who now doesn't contend that what he said was intended as a joke is Donald Trump himself. His current argument is that the defense of the Second Amendment is so important that he was just telling his supporters to use their political clout by coming out to vote and denying Hillary Clinton the presidency. There is no way to turn, twist or spin Trump's words to match his declared intent. We know from the fatal shootings of abortion providers and the use of explosives to blow up abortion clinics, that there are enough people with unstable minds that any utterance that seems to encourage the use of violence may be acted on.
ADDENDUMS:
Yesterday, Donald Trump invoked former New York City mayor Rudy Guliani as a particularly reliable witness to what he said in the North Carolina rally because "he was there."
Yesterday, Trump identified George Washington as the founder of our nation; President Obama as the founder of ISIS; and Hillary Clinton as the co-founder of ISIS. So what is it? Are Obama and Clinton co-founders, or is Obama the sole founder?
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